Ukraine

Culture Name

Ukrainian

Orientation

Identification.
Ukrainian nationhood begins with the Kyivan Rus. This Eastern Slavic
state flourished from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries on the
territory of contemporary Ukraine, with Kyiv as its capital. The name
Ukraine first appeared in twelfth century chronicles in reference to the
Kyivan Rus. In medieval Europe cultural boundary codes were based on a
native ground demarcation. Ukraine, with its lexical roots
kraj
(country) and
krayaty
(to cut, and hence to demarcate), meant "[our] circumscribed
land." The ethnonym
Rus
was the main self-identification in Ukraine until the seventeenth century
when the term Ukraine reappeared in documents. This ethnonym of Rus
people,
Rusych
(plural,
Rusychi
), evolved into
Rusyn
, a western Ukrainian self-identification interchangeable with Ukrainian
into the twentieth century.
Ruthenian
, a Latinization of
Rusyn
, was used by the Vatican and the Austrian Empire designating Ukrainians.

Location and Geography.
Ukraine, Europe's second largest country during the twentieth
century, occupies 232,200 square miles (603,700 square kilometers). Its
main geographical features are the Polissya and Volyn northern forests,
the central forest steppes, the Donetsk eastern uplands (up to 1,600 feet
[500 meters] above sea level), and the coastal lowlands and steppes along
the Black and Azov Seas. The Carpathian mountains in the west reach 6,760
feet (2,061 meters) at Mount Hoverla. Roman-Kosh in the Crimean peninsula
reaches 5,061 feet (1,543 meters.) Alpine meadows—called
polonyna
in the Carpathians and
iajla
in the Crimea—are another interesting geographical feature.

Ukraine's climate is moderate. The yearly average temperatures
range from 40 to 49 degrees Fahrenheit (6 to 9 degrees
Celsius)—except for the southern steppes and in Crimea, where
yearly average temperatures range from 50 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to
13 degrees Celsius).

Linguistic Affiliation.
Ukrainian is an Indo-European language of the Eastern Slavic group. Its
Cyrillic alphabet is phonetic; its grammar is synthetic, conveying
information through word modification rather than order. Contemporary
literary Ukrainian

Ukraine

developed in the eighteenth century from the Poltava and Kyiv dialects.
Distinctive dialects are the Polissya, Volyn, and Podillya dialects of
northern and central Ukraine and the western Boyko, Hutsul, and Lemko
dialects. Their characteristics derive from normatively discarded old
elements that reappear in dialectic usage. The
surzhyk,
an unstable and variable mixture of Ukrainian and Russian languages, is a
by-product of Soviet Russification. A similar phenomenon based on
Ukrainian and Polish languages existed in western Ukraine but disappeared
almost completely after World War II.

In 1989 statistics showed Ukrainian spoken as a native language by 87
percent of the population, with 12 percent of Ukrainians claiming Russian
as their native language. The use of native languages among ethnic groups
showed Russians, Hungarians, and Crimean Tatars at 94 to 98 percent and
Germans, Greeks, and Poles at 25 percent, 19 percent and 13 percent,
respectively. Assimilation through Ukrainian language is 67 percent for
Poles, 45 percent for Czechs, and 33 percent for Slovaks. As a second
language Ukrainian is used by 85 percent of Czechs, 54 percent of Poles,
47 percent of Jews, 43 percent of Slovaks, and 33 percent of Russians.

Formerly repressed, Ukrainian and other ethnic languages in Ukraine
flourished at the end of the twentieth century. Ukrainian language use
grew between 1991 and 1994, as evidenced by the increase of Ukrainian
schools in multiethnic oblasts. However, local pro-communist officials
still resist Ukrainian and other ethnic languages except Russian in public
life.

Symbolism.
The traditional Ukrainian symbols—trident and blue-and-yellow
flag—were officially adopted during Ukrainian independence in
1917–1920 and again after the declaration of independence in 1991.
The trident dates back to the Kyivan Rus as a pre-heraldic symbol of
Volodymyr the
Great. The national flag colors are commonly believed to represent blue
skies above yellow wheat fields. Heraldically, they derive from the Azure,
the lion rampant or coat of arms of the Galician Volynian Prince Lev I.
The 1863 patriotic song "Ukraine Has Not Perished," composed
by Myxaylo Verbyts'kyi from a poem of Pavlo Chubyns'kyi,
became the Ukrainian national anthem in 1917 and was reaffirmed in 1991.
These symbols were prohibited as subversive under the Soviets, but
secretly were cherished by all Ukrainian patriots.

The popular symbol of Mother Ukraine appeared first in Ukrainian baroque
poetry of the seventeenth century as a typical allegory representing
homelands as women. When Ukraine was divided between the Russian and
Austrian empires, the image of Mother Ukraine was transformed into the
image of an abused woman abandoned by her children. Mother Ukraine became
a byword, not unlike Uncle Sam, but much more emotionally charged. After
1991 a new generation of Ukrainian writers began to free this image from
its victimization aspects.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation.
Ukrainian nationhood begins with the Kyivan Rus realm, which arose from a
unification of Antian tribes between the sixth and ninth centuries. Rus is
mentioned for the first time by European chroniclers in 839
C.E.
The Kyivan state experienced a cultural and commercial flourishing from
the ninth to the eleventh centuries under the rulers Volodymyr I (Saint
Volodymyr), his son Yaroslav I the Wise, and Volodymyr Monomakh. The first
of these rulers Christianized Rus in 988
C.E.
The other two gave it a legal code. Christianity gave Rus its first
alphabet, developed by the Macedonian saints Cyril and Methodius. Dynastic
fragmentation and Mongol and Tatar invasions in the thirteenth century
caused Kyiv's decline. The dynastically related western
principality of Halych (Galicia) and Volyn resisted the Mongols and Tatars
and became a Rus bastion through the fourteenth century. One of its most
distinguished rulers was Danylo Romanovich, the only king in Ukrainian
history, crowned by the Pope Innocent IV in 1264.

After the fourteenth century, Rus fell under the rule of foreign powers:
the Golden Horde Mongols, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the kingdom of
Poland. Lithuania controlled most of the Ukrainian lands except for the
Halych and Volyn principalities, subjugated after much struggle by Poland.
The southern steppes and the Black Sea coast remained under the Golden
Horde, an outpost of Genghis Khan's empire. The Crimean khanate, a
vassal state of the Ottomans, succeeded the Golden Horde after 1475.
Eventually northwestern and central Ukraine were absorbed into the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania which then controlled almost all of
Ukraine—giving Ukrainians and Belorussians ample autonomy. The
Grand Duchy of Lithuania adopted the administrative practices and the
legal system of Rus and a state language that was Old Slavonic, heavily
imbued with vernacular Ukrainian and Belorussian. However,
Lithuania—united with Poland by a dynastic linkage in
1386—gradually adopted Roman Catholicism and Polish language and
customs. In 1569 the Lublin Union created the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, and Ukraine was annexed to Poland. The 1596 Brest-Litovsk
Union divided Ukrainians into Orthodox and Uniate Catholics. Northern
borderlands initially colonized by Rus princes increasingly diverged from
the Kyivan culture with the rise of the Duchy of Muscovy.

In the fifteenth century Ukraine clashed with the Crimean Khanate. The
1490 chronicles mention Ukrainian warriors called
kozaks
defending Ukrainian lands from Crimean Tatar slave raids. Kozaks were
based on the Zaporozhian Sich, an island fortress below the Dnipro River
rapids. Nominally subject to the Polish crown, the Zaporozhian kozaks
became symbols of Ukrainian national identity. Strife between the
Ukrainians and their Polish overlords began in the 1590s, spearheaded by
the kozaks. In 1648, led by the kozak hetman (military leader) Bohdan
Khmelnytsky, Ukrainians rose against Poland, forming an independent state.
Khmelnytsky sought help against the Poles in a treaty with Moscow in 1654,
which was used as a pretext for occupation by the Muscovites. Poland
recognized Moscow's suzerainty over Kiev and the lands east of the
Dnipro, and the Ukrainian hetmanate was gradually subjugated by Moscow.
Despite this, the hetmanate reached its pinnacle under Ivan Mazepa
(1687–1709). Literature, art, architecture in the distinctive Kozak
baroque style, and learning flourished under his patronage. Mazepa wanted
a united Ukrainian state, initially under the tsar's sovereignty.
When Tsar Peter threatened Ukrainian autonomy, Mazepa rose against him in
alliance with Charles XII of Sweden. The allies were defeated in the
Battle of Poltava in 1709. Fleeing from Peter's vengeance Mazepa
and his followers became the first organized political immigration in
Ukrainian history.

During the eighteenth-century partitions of Poland, the Russian Empire
absorbed all Ukraine except for Galicia, which went to Austria. The
empress Catherine II extended serfdom to the traditionally free kozak
lands and destroyed the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. During the nineteenth
century all vestiges of nationhood were repressed in Russian-held Ukraine.
The Ukrainian language was banned from all but domestic use by the Valuev
Decree of 1863 and the Ems Ukase of 1876. Ukrainians opposed this policy
by developing strong ties with Ukrainian cultural activists in the much
freer Austrian Empire. An inclusive national movement arose during World
War I, and in 1917 an independent Ukrainian state was proclaimed in Kyiv.
In 1918 western Ukraine declared independence striving to unite with the
East, but its occupation by Poland was upheld by the Allies in 1922.

After two years of war Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union in 1922.
Its Communist party was subordinated to the Russian Communists. Only 7
percent of its 5,000 members were Ukrainian. Favoring city
proletarians—mostly alien in nationality and ideology—the
Bolsheviks had very little support in a population 80 percent Ukrainian,
and 90 percent peasant. However, Ukrainian communists implemented a policy
of Ukrainization through educational and cultural activities. This rebirth
of Ukrainian culture ended abruptly at the time of the Stalin's
genocidal famine of 1933. This famine killed up to seven million
Ukrainians, mostly peasants who had preserved the agricultural traditions
of Ukraine along with an ethnic and national identity. The destruction of
Ukrainian nationalism and intelligentsia lasted through the Stalinist
purges of the late 1930s and continued more selectively until the fall of
the Soviet Union.

When Germany and the Soviets attacked Poland in 1939, Galicia was united
to the rest of Ukraine. The German-Soviet war in 1941 brought hopes of
freedom and even a declaration of independence in western Ukraine.
However, the brutal Nazi occupation provoked a resistance movement, first
against the Germans and then against the Soviets. The Ukrainian Insurgent
Army fought overwhelming Soviet forces that subjected western Ukraine to
mass terror and ethnic cleansing to destroy the resistance. At the end of
World War II almost three million Ukrainians were in Germany and Austria,
most of them forced laborers and prisoners of war. The vast majority of
them were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, and ended up in Gulag
prison camps. Two-hundred thousand refugees from Ukraine managed to remain
in Western Europe and immigrated to the United States and to other Western
countries.

In 1986, the Chernobyl accident, a partial meltdown at a Soviet-built
nuclear power plant, shocked the entire nation. After Mikhail
Gorbachev's new openness policy in the 1980s, the democratized
Ukrainian parliament declared the republic's sovereignty in 1990.
Following a failed coup against Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, the
Ukrainian parliament declared independence on 24 August 1991,
overwhelmingly approved by referendum and internationally recognized.

National Identity.
National identity arises from personal self-determination shared with
others on the basis of a common language, cultural and family traditions,
religion, and historical and mythical heritages. There is a lively
reassessment of these elements in contemporary Ukraine in a new stage of
identity development. Language issues focus on the return of phonetics,
purged from Soviet Ukrainian orthography by Russification, and on the
macaronic Russo/Ukrainian
surzhyk.
A revival of cultural traditions includes Christian holidays, days of
remembrance, and church weddings, baptisms, and funerals. The Ukrainian
Catholic Church emerged from the underground and the exiled Ukrainian
Orthodox Autocephalous Church united formally with the Kyivan patriarchy.
Ukrainian Protestants of various denominations practice their religion
unhampered.

The 988 baptism of the Rus melded Christian beliefs with existing customs,
leading to a Rus identity connected to both homeland and religion. In the
seventeenth century Ukrainian identity held its own against Polish
identity and the Roman Catholic Church. In the Russian empire Ukrainians
preserved their identity through culture and language because religion by
itself integrated them with Russians.

Historical facts and myths as bases of national identity were first
reflected in the literature of the Ukrainian baroque. In later times, the
proto-Slavic origins of the Ukrainian people were ascribed to the settled
branch of Scythians (500
B.C.E.
–100
B.C.E.
) mentioned by ancient Greek and Roman historians. Recent theories
connecting origins of Ukrainian culture with the first Indo-European
tribes of the Northern Black Sea region and with the Trypillya culture
(4,000
B.C.E.
) are supported by plausible research.

Ethnic Relations.
Ukraine, surrounded by diverse nations and cultures, is home to
Belorussians in northern Polissia; Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, and
Romanians in western Ukraine; Moldovians and

Boats and barges line the Dnieper River in Kiev.

Gagauz in southern Ukraine; and Russians in eastern and northern Ukraine.
The Russian Empire settled Germans, Swedes, Bulgarians, Greeks, Christian
Albanians, and Serbs in southern steppes. Russian landlords brought ethnic
Russian serfs to the steppes, and Russian Old Believers also settled there
fleeing persecution. In 1830 and 1863 the Russian government exiled Polish
insurgents to southern Ukraine. Serbs and Poles assimilated with
Ukrainians, but the other groups retained their identities. Tatars,
Karaims, and Greeks were native to Crimea. Since the Middle Ages Jews and
Armenians settled in major and minor urban centers. Roma (Gypsies) were
nomadic until Soviets forced them into collective farms. The last major
immigration to Ukraine took place under the Soviets. Ethnic Russians were
sent to repopulate the villages emptied by the 1933 genocide and again
after 1945 to provide a occupying administration in western Ukraine.

Historically, ethnic conflicts emerged in Ukraine on social and religious
grounds. The seventeenth century Ukrainian-Polish wars were caused by
oppressive serfdom, exorbitant taxes, and discrimination or even
elimination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by Polish magnates. Their
appointment of Jewish settlers as tax collectors in Ukrainian villages
also led to strife between these ethnic groups. The settled Ukrainians and
the nomadic steppe tribes conflicted since medieval times. From the
fifteenth century on, Crimean Tatars raided Ukraine for slaves, and
Zaporozhian kozaks were the only defense against them. Even so,
Zaporozhians made trade and military agreements with the Crimean khanate:
Tatar cavalry often assisted Ukrainian hetmans in diverse wars. Likewise,
Ukrainian cultural and educational connections with Poles existed despite
their conflicts: Bohdan Khmelnytsky and many other kozak leaders were
educated in Polish Jesuit colleges, and initially Khmelnytsky considered
the Polish king as his liege. Ukrainian Jewish relations of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also cannot be wholly described in
terms of ethnic strife. Jewish merchants regularly traded with kozaks and
several high officers of the hetmanate—such as members of the
renowned Markevych/Markovych aristocratic families—were of Jewish
origin.

In contemporary Ukraine ethnic communities enjoy governmental support for
their cultural development. Ethnic language instruction increased
considerably in multicultural regions. The first center for preservation
and development of Roma culture opened in Izmail near Odessa. Two
prominent issues in ethnic relations concern the return to Crimea of the
Crimean Tatars exiled in Soviet times and the problem of the
Russian-speaking population. The Crimean Tatar
Medjlis
(parliament) demands citizenship for Tatars returning from Stalinist
exile while the Russian-dominated parliament of the Crimean autonomous
republic opposes that demand.

Pro-Russian elements identify Russophones with Russian ethnicity. However,
statistics show a large number of Russophones who do not consider
themselves Russian. In 1989, 90.7 percent of Jews, 79.1 percent of Greeks,
and 48.9 percent of Armenians and other ethnic groups in Ukraine
recognized Russian as a language of primary communication but not an
indicator of ethnicity or nationality. Forcing a Russian ethnic identity
onto non-Russian Russophones infringes on their human rights. Russians in
Ukraine are either economic migrants from Soviet times, mostly blue-collar
workers, or the former Russian
nomenklatura
(bureaucratic, military, and secret police elite). The latter were the
upper class of Soviet society. Since losing this status after the Soviet
Union collapsed, they have rallied around a neo-Communist, pro-Russian
political ideology, xenophobic in the case of the Crimean Tatars.

Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space

A prototypical architectural tradition was found by archeologists studying
ancient civilizations in Ukraine. Excavations of the Tripillya culture
(4,000–3,000
B.C.E.
) show one- and two-room houses with outbuildings within concentric walled
and moated settlements. The sophisticated architecture of Greek and Roman
colonies in the Black Sea region in 500
B.C.E.
–100
C.E.
influenced Scythian house building. The architecture of later Slavic
tribes was mostly wooden: log houses in forested highlands and frame
houses in the forest-steppe. The Kyivan Rus urban centers resembled those
of medieval Europe: a prince's fortified palace surrounded by the
houses of the townsfolk. Tradesmen and merchants lived in suburbs called
posad
. Stone as a building material became widespread in public buildings from
the tenth century, and traditions of Byzantine church
architecture—cross plan and domes—combined with local
features. Prime examples of this period are the Saint Sophia Cathedral in
Kyiv (about 1030s) and the Holy Trinity Church over the Gate of the
Pechersk Monastery (1106–1108). Elements of Romanesque style,
half-columns and arches, appear in Kyivan Rus church architecture from the
twelfth century, principally in the Saint. Cyril Church in Kyiv
(middle-twelfth century), the Cathedral of the Dormition in Kaniv, and the
Saint Elias Church in Chernihiv.

Ukrainian architecture readily adopted the Renaissance style exemplified
by the Khotyn and Kamyanets'-Podil'skyi castles, built in
the fourteenth century, Oles'ko and Ostroh castles of the fifteenth
century, and most buildings in Lviv's Market Square. Many Ukrainian
cities were ruled by the Magdeburg Law of municipal self-rule. This is
reflected in their layout: Lviv and Kamyanets' Podil'skyi
center on a city hall/market square ensemble.

Ukrainian baroque architecture was representative of the lifestyle of the
kozak aristocracy. At that time most medieval churches were redesigned to
include a richer exterior and interior ornamentation and multilevel domes.
The most impressive exponents of this period are the bell tower of the
Pechersk Monastery and the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv, Saint George's
Cathedral in Lviv, and the Pochaiv Monastery. A unique example of baroque
wooden architecture is the eighteenth century Trinity Cathedral in former
Samara, built for Zaporozhian kozaks. The neoclassical park and palace
ensemble became popular with the landed gentry in the late eighteenth
century. Representative samples are the Sofiivka Palace in Kamianka, the
Kachanivka Palace near Chernihiv, and the palace in
Korsun'-Shevchenkivskyi.

Ukrainian folk architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
shows a considerable influence of baroque ornamentation and neoclassic
orders while preserving traditional materials like wood and wattled clay.
Village planning remained traditional, centered around a church, community
buildings, and marketplace. The streets followed property lines and land
contours. Village neighborhoods were named for extended families, clans,
or diverse trades and crafts. This toponymy, dating from medieval times,
reappeared spontaneously in southern and eastern Ukrainian towns and
cities, such as Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Simferopol that were built in the
eighteenth century.

Throughout the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth
century, the empire architectural style came to Ukraine from the West.
Modern urban planning—a grid with squares and promenades—was
applied to new cities. At the beginning of twentieth century, there was a
revival of national styles in architecture. A national modernism combined
elements of folk architecture with new European styles. A prime exponent
of this style is Vasyl' Krychevs'kyi's design of the
1909 Poltava Zemstvo Building.

Soviet architecture initially favored constructivism as shown in the
administrative center of Kharkiv and then adopted a heavy neoclassicism
pejoratively called totalitarian style for major urban centers. Post-World
War II architecture focused on monobloc projects reflecting a collectivist
ideology. However, contemporary Ukrainians prefer single houses to
apartment blocs. The traditional Ukrainian house has a private space
between the street and the house, usually with a garden. Striving for more
private space people in apartment buildings partition original long
hallways into smaller spaces.
Dachas
(summer cottages) are a vital part of contemporary Ukrainian life. Laid
out on a grid,
dacha
cooperatives provide summer rural communities for city dwellers.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life.
Ukrainians prefer to eat at home, leaving restaurants for special
occasions. Meal times are from 7:00 to 10:00 A.M. for breakfast, from
12:00 noon to 3:00 P.M. for dinner or lunch, and from 5:00 to 8:00 P.M.
for supper. The main meal of the day is dinner, including soup and meat,
fowl, or a fish dish with a salad. Ukrainians

The Opera and Ballet Theatre in Odessa uses the half-columns and
arches common to the Romanesque style of architecture.

generally avoid exotic meats and spices. A variety of soups—called
borshch
collectively—is traditional and symbolic, so it is never called
"soup."

Menu items in restaurants are usually Eastern European. Expensive
restaurants are patronized at supper time by a new breed of business
executives who combine dining with professional interaction.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions.
Culinary traditions in Ukraine are connected with ancient rituals. The
calendar cycle of religious holidays combined with folk traditions
requires a variety of specific foods. Christmas Eve supper consists of 12
meatless dishes, including
borshch
, cabbage rolls,
varenyky
(known in North America as pierogi), fish, mushrooms, various vegetables,
and a wheat grain, honey, poppyseed, and raisin dish called
kutya
. The latter dish is served only at Christmas time. On Easter Sunday food
that has been blessed previously is eaten after Resurrection services. It
includes a sweet bread called
paska
, colored eggs, butter, meat, sausages, bacon, horseradish, and garlic. On
the holiday of the Transfiguration (19 August), apples and honey are
blessed and eaten
along with other fruits of the season. Various alcoholic drinks
complement the meals. It is customary to offer a drink to guests, who must
not refuse it except for health or religious reasons.

Basic Economy.
Traditional Ukrainian food products are domestic. Pressured by the
economic crisis, people grow products in their home gardens and dachas.
City and village markets are places of bartering consumer goods and food
products. In the late 1990s, the development of the food industry was
stimulated by economic reforms.

Land Tenure and Property.
Private property rights were reinstated in Ukraine after 1991. Collective
farms were abolished in 2000, and peasants received land titles.
Privatization also has been successful in cities. Inheritance law in
Ukraine, as in other countries, applies to transfers of property according
to legal testaments.

Major Industries.
Heavy industry in Ukraine includes aircraft plants in Kharkiv;
shipbuilding in Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Kerch; and steel and pig iron mills
in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhya oblasts. The latter depend on large
supplies of coal and iron ore from Kryvbas and Donbas. Electronics,
machine tools, and buses are produced in Lviv, and one of the
world's largest agrochemical plants is located in Kalush. Other
important industrial products include ferro-alloys, nonferrous metals, and
building materials. Under the Soviet command economy, Ukraine's
industry focused on raw materials and on the production of armaments and
heavy machinery—25 percent of all Soviet military goods. Lately,
successful joint ventures with foreign partners produce consumer goods.
Seventy percent of the land is in agricultural use.

Trade.
The integration of Ukraine into the world economic system is
indispensable for an effective export-oriented economic reform and for
foreign investments. Establishing trade relations with the G7 countries
(the seven largest industrialized countries: United States, Japan, Great
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada) is a priority for
Ukraine's international economic strategy.

Division of Labor.
Contemporary Ukraine has a high level of both official and hidden
unemployment, especially in industry and in research institutions formerly
oriented to military needs. Equal opportunity employment rules have not
been implemented at the end of the twentieth century.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes.
Soviet Ukrainian society was officially classless with three equal
groups: workers, peasants, and working intelligentsia. In reality the
Communist Party elite enjoyed an immensely preferential status, with
several internal gradations. In contemporary Ukraine many former Soviet
bureaucrats (
nomenklarura
) retained their status and influence as members of the new administration
or as newly rich business professionals. Education, health care, and
research professionals, all dependent on state budgets, are in the lowest
income bracket. Unemployment among blue-collar workers rose when heavy
industry shifted its production focus. Farmers are in a transitionary
phase in the re-institution of land property rights.

Symbols of Social Stratification.
In Soviet times ownership of so-called deficit goods (scarce items
available only to party elite in restricted stores) conferred a superior
social status. The free market made prestigious goods available to anyone
with cash. Social distinctions are popularly based on material status
symbols such as cars, houses, luxury items, and fashionable attire. A more
modest and traditional social and regional identification shows through
apparel: many older suburban and country women wear typical kerchiefs, and
Carpathian highlanders of any gender and age often wear characteristic
sheepskin vests or sleeveless jackets.

Political Life

Government.
Constitutionally, Ukraine is a democratic, social, law-based republic.
The people exercise power through elected state and local governments. The
right to amend the constitution belongs solely to the people and may be
exercised only through popular referenda.

The office of president was instituted in 1917 in the Ukrainian National
Republic and reinstated in 1991. The constitution vests executive power on
the president and the prime minister and legislative power on the
Verkhovna Rada
, a unicameral body of

Farm workers travel in a village near Orane. Seventy percent of the
land in the Ukraine is used for agriculture.

450 directly elected representatives. All suffrage is universal. The
president is elected by direct vote for a five years' cadence. The
president appoints the prime minister and cabinet members, subject to
approval by the
Verkhovna Rada
.

Leadership and Political Officials.
Ukraine has more than one hundred registered political parties. Right of
center and nationalist parties include the National Front, Rukh, and UNA
(Ukrainian National Association). The most prominent of them is Rukh,
championing an inclusive national state and free market reforms. The
leftist parties are the Communist, Progressive Socialist, Socialist, and
United Socialist. Communists oppose land privatization and propose to
revive the Soviet Union. Centrists are most numerous and include the
Agrarian, Popular Democratic, Hromada, Greens, and Labor-Liberal parties.
The Green Party became a political force because of its pro-active concern
with ecology.

Political leaders and activists in Ukraine are generally accessible.
However, most of them are used to old Soviet models of interaction. By
contrast, younger politicians are much more attuned to a democratic style
of communication.

Social Problems and Control.
The Security Service of Ukraine, the Internal Affairs Ministry, and the
Defense Ministry are responsible for national security, reporting to the
president through his cabinet. The armed and security forces are
controlled by civilian authorities. The Internal Affairs Ministry and its
police, called
militsia,
deal with domestic crime and run correctional institutions. The Security
Service succeeded the Soviet KGB. It deals with espionage and economic
crimes. Public confidence in the authorities is gradually replacing the
well-founded fear and mistrust of Soviet times.

Military Activity.
The Ukrainian army conscripts males between the ages of eighteen and
twenty five for eighteen months of compulsory service, with medical and
hardship exemptions and student deferments. In 1992 the Ukrainian armed
forces numbered 230,000. The Soviet Black Sea Fleet was incorporated into
the Ukrainian naval forces. Ukrainian infantry participated in the United
Nations peacekeeping effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ukrainian armed
forces conduct frequent joint maneuvers with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization.

Social Welfare and Change Programs

Ukrainian social welfare programs are in their beginnings. Unemployment
assistance is available at governmental centers that offer professional
retraining aided by nongovernmental organizations.
International charity organizations provide assistance to the needy. Help
to Chernobyl disaster victims is funded by taxes and by international
charity. Statistics from 1995 show Chernobyl-accident compensations to 1.5
million persons, 662,000 of them children.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations

Community associations have a long history in Ukraine. The
Prosvita
(Enlightenment) Society established in 1868 under the Austrian Empire and
in 1905 under the Russian Empire promoted literacy in Ukrainian through
reading rooms and lending libraries, publishing activities, amateur
theatrics, and other cultural activities. It was closed by the Soviets but
flourished in western Ukraine until 1939. Prosvita was re-established in
independent Ukraine with its original mission. Many contemporary Ukrainian
non-governmental organizations derive from the human rights movements of
the 1970s. A society,
Memorial,
was organized in the late 1980s to collect evidence and memories of
political persecution and to assist former political prisoners.

The Ukrainian Women's Association was established in 1884.
Currently, this organization and its diasporan counterpart concentrate on
the preservation of national culture, on education, on human issues, and
on charity work. Ukrainian women participate in politics through the
Ukrainian Women Voter organization. The nongovernmental organization,
La Strada
, supports services for victims of sexual trafficking and helps to run
prevention centers in Donets'k, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovs'k.

Gender Roles and Status

Division of Labor by Gender.
Ukrainian labor laws guarantee gender equality, but their implementation
is imperfect. Few women work at higher levels of government and
management, and those who do are generally in subordinate positions. As in
the Soviet Union, women work in heavy blue-collar jobs, except for coal
mining. Nevertheless, there still is a traditional labor division by
gender: teachers and nurses are mostly women; school administrators and
physicians are mostly men. Women in typically female jobs such as teachers
and nurses are paid less and promoted more slowly than men.

The Relative Status of Women and Men.
Males in positions of authority generally perceive women as the weaker
sex. Women are welcome as secretaries or subordinates but not as
colleagues or competitors. Women politicians and business executives are
rare. They have to adopt a male style of interaction to function
effectively. Sexual harassment in the workplace is widespread.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage.
Ukrainians favor endogamy. Traditionally, young people chose mates at
social events. Historically, parental approval and blessing were sought.
Marriages against parents' wishes were rare in the past, and
matchmakers mediated between the two families. The parents' role in
the marriage has been preserved in contemporary Ukrainian culture through
their responsibilities to organize and finance the wedding ceremonies and
festivities for their children. The festivities show the family's
social status. Most marriage ceremonies today are both civil and
religious.

In traditional society public opinion pressured young people to marry
early. This still leads to many marriages between the ages of seventeen
and twenty five. It also leads to a high number of divorces, very rare in
the traditional past. The Ukrainian Catholic Church prohibits divorce and
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church discourages it. Civil courts grant divorce,
adjudicating property and custodial rights.

Domestic Unit.
The traditional Ukrainian domestic unit is a single family. Elderly
parents eventually lived with the child who inherited their property. The
chronic housing shortage in the Soviet Union and the economic crisis in
contemporary Ukraine forced young couples to live with their parents in
close quarters. This reduction of personal space frequently caused
familial dysfunction.

The Ukrainian agricultural tradition clearly defined men's and
women's parallel responsibilities. Men were responsible for tilling
the fields and for their sons' socialization. Women were
housekeepers, who also took responsibility for home crafts and budgets and
for the daughters' socialization.

Inheritance.
Ukrainian customs and laws of property inheritance never discriminated by
gender. Historically, sons and daughters inherited parents'
property equally, and a widow was the principal heir of her deceased
husband. At present, inheritance is granted by testament. Without a
testament, an estate is divided regardless of gender between children or
close relatives in court. Inheritances and

Traders sell food at a Sunday market in Kiev. A marketplace is the
centerpiece of almost every town and village.

deeded gifts are not subject to division in divorce cases.

Kin Groups.
In Ukraine kinship beyond the immediate family has no legal standing, but
it is an important aspect of popular culture. A kin group usually includes
cognates of all degrees and godparents. A non-relative who is chosen as a
godparent is thereby included into the kin group. Kin group reunions take
place on family occasions such as marriages, baptisms, or funerals, and on
traditional festive days.

Socialization

Infant Care.
In 1992, 63 percent of children under age seven in urban areas and 34
percent in rural areas attended day care. These figures have decreased as
current legislation provides paid maternity leaves for up to one year and
unpaid leaves up to three years, recognizing Ukrainian women's
preference for personal care of their children. Grandparents also provide
care for grandchildren, especially in lower-income families. A well-cared
for child is a traditional source of family pride. The decreasing number
of births may be explained by the potential parents' inability to
provide appropriate care for their children during economic crisis. An
increasing number of children are abandoned by dysfunctional parents.

Child Rearing and Education.
Ancient beliefs regarding child rearing still exist in contemporary
Ukraine: a baby's hair is not cut until the first birthday; baptism
is seen as a safeguard, and safety pins inside a child's clothing
ward off evil spells.

Children attend school from age six. Education is compulsory and universal
through nine grades. Students may graduate after the ninth grade at age
sixteen and may work with special permission or enter vocational and
technical schools. Since the number of specializations in these schools
has decreased, most students finish the full eleven grades. A curricular
revision is introducing new courses and programs for gifted children.

Higher Education.
In post-secondary education undergraduate degrees are granted directly by
universities. Candidate and doctor of sciences or arts degrees are granted
by the Highest Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education in a
bureaucratically complicated system. Every major field of learning is
covered in major universities. Every large and medium-sized urban center
has at least one institution of higher learning.

Men talking in a hayfield near Rovno. Workers can now own land
again, as collective farms were abolished in 2000.

Etiquette

Social interaction in Ukraine is regulated by etiquette similar to the
rest of Europe. Some local idiosyncrasies are a personal space of less
than an arm's length in business conversations and the habit of
drinking alcohol at business meetings, a relic of Soviet times.

Religion

Religious Beliefs.
Religious beliefs are central to Ukrainian culture. Ukraine experienced a
revival of many religions: Ukrainian Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic,
Protestantism, Judaism—including Hasidism—and Islam. The
constitution and the 1991 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religion
provide for separation of church and state and the right to practice the
religion of one's choice.

Religious Practitioners.
Ukrainian Orthodox clergy are educated in divinity schools such as the
Kyiv Theological Academy. The Ukrainian Catholic Church, banned in Soviet
times, needs priests and provides a wide array of educational programs at
the Lviv Theological Seminary. Protestant denominations, principally
Baptists and Seventh-Day Adventists, train their ministers with the
assistance of American and Western European mission programs. The
numerically small Roman Catholic clergy is assisted by pastoral visitors
from abroad. Since the time of independence, Jewish rabbis have been
completing their studies in Israel. Muslim clergy is educated in Central
Asia and Turkey.

Rituals and Holy Places.
Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic Churches share historic, ritual, and
national heritages. Popular culture incorporated many ancient pagan
rituals into a folk version of Christianity. Orthodox priests still
perform exorcisms by the canon of Saint Basil the Great. The Holy Virgin
icon and the spring of the Pochaiv Orthodox Monastery are believed to have
miraculous healing powers. Zarvanytsia in western Ukraine is a place of
holy pilgrimage for Ukrainian Catholics. The grave of the founding rabbi
of Hassidism, situated near Uman', is a pilgrimage site for Hasidic
Jews.

Death and the Afterlife.
Ukrainians observe ancient funeral traditions very faithfully. A
collective repast follows funeral services and is repeated on the ninth
and fortieth days and then again at six and twelve months. An annual
remembrance day called Provody on the Sunday after Easter gathers families
at ancestral graves to see off once again the souls of the departed.
Provody is widely observed in contemporary Ukraine. Under the Soviets it
symbolized an
ancient tradition. Its Christian symbolism represents Christ's
victory over death. Its pre-Christian roots are attuned to the rebirth of
nature in the spring and to an ancient ancestors' cult.

Medicine and Health Care

Ukraine's comprehensive and free health care includes primary and
specialized hospitals and research institutions. Yet folk healing is not
ignored by professional medicine. The popularity of folk healing is based
on a distrust of standard medicine. The folk healers' knowledge of
natural resources and lore is an ancient cultural heritage. Rituals,
prayers, and charms are used by folk healers only as additional elements
of healing. These healers prefer to work individually and let the patient
determine the fee.

Another type of healer has become popular since the last days of the
Soviet Union. These healers hold collective sessions eliciting mass
hysteria from their audiences for an admission fee. Their popularity may
be explained as a reaction among the less educated to stressful economic
and social situations combined with the spiritual vacuum created by
seventy-four years of compulsory atheism.

Secular Celebrations

There are several secular official holidays in Ukraine, some left over
from Soviet times. The International Women's Day, 8 March, is
celebrated now in the same context as Mother's Day: men present
small gifts and flowers to all women family members and work colleagues.
Victory Day, 9 May, became a day of remembrance of those who died in World
War II. Constitution Day is 28 June. Independence Day, 24 August, is
celebrated with military parades and fireworks.

The Arts and Humanities

Support for the Arts.
The former Soviet Union provided governmental support for the arts
through professional organizations such as unions of writers, artists, or
composers. These organizations still exist and try to function despite a
general lack of funds. Young and unconventional artists usually organize
informal groups funded by individual sponsors and grants from
international foundations.

Literature.
Ukrainian literature begins with the chronicles of Kyivan Rus and the
twelfth century epic
The Tale of Ihor's Campaign.
Principal authors in

A Western Orthodox church in the Carpathian Mountains. Crosses and
domes are common on Ukrainian churches.

the baroque period were Lazar Baranovych (1620–1693), Ioannykii
Galyatovs'kyi (d. 1688), Ivan Velychkovs'kyi (d. 1707), and
Dymitrii Tuptalo (1651–1709), who wrote didactic poetry and drama.
Kozak chronicles of the early eighteenth century include
The Chronicle of the Eyewitness, The Chronicle of Hryhorii Hrabyanka
, and
The Chronicle of Samijlo Velychko
.

Ivan Kotlyarevskyi (1769–1838) first used the proto-modern
Ukrainian literary language in his 1798 poem
Eneida
(Aeneid). He travestied Virgil, remaking the original Trojans into
Ukrainian kozaks and the destruction of Troy into the abolition of the
hetmanate. Hryhorij Kvitka Osnov'yanenko (1778–1843)
developed a new narrative style in prose.

In 1837 three Galician writers known as the Rus'ka Trijtsia
(Ruthenian Trinity)—Markiian Shashkevych (1811–1843), Ivan
Vahylevych (1811–1866) and Yakiv Holovats'kyi
(1814–1888)—published a literary collection under the title
Rusalka Dnistrovaya (The Nymph of Dnister).
This endeavor focused on folklore and history and began to unify the
Ukrainian literary language. The literary genius of Taras Shevchenko
(1814–1861) completed the development of romantic literature and
its national spirit. His 1840 collection of poems
Kobzar
and other poetic works became symbols of Ukrainian national identity for
all Ukrainians from gentry to peasants. In his poetry he appears as the
son of the downtrodden Mother-Ukraine. Later, his own image was identified
with an archetypal Great Father, embodying the nation's spirit.
This process completed the creation of a system of symbolic
representations in Ukrainian national identity.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Ukrainian writers under the
Russian Empire—Panteleimon Kulish (1819–1897), Marko Vovchok
(1834–1907), Ivan Nechuj-Levyts'kyj (1838–1918),
Panas Myrnyj (1849–1920), and Borys Hrinchenko
(1863–1910)—developed a realistic style in their novels and
short stories. Osyp-Yurij Fed'kovych (1834–1888) pioneered
Ukrainian literature in the westernmost Bukovyna under Austrian rule. Ivan
Franko (1856–1916) is a landmark figure in Ukrainian literature
comparable to Shevchenko. His poetry ranged from the most intimate
introspection to epic grandeur. His prose was attuned to contemporary
European styles, especially naturalism, and his poetry ranged from
introspective to philosophical.

Mykhailo Kotsubynskyi (1864–1913); Vasyl Stefanyk
(1871–1936), a master of short psychological stories in dialect;
and Olha Kobylianska (1865–1942) all wrote in a psychologically
true style. Lesya Ukrainka (1871–1913) saw Ukrainian history and
society within a universal and emotionally heightened context in her
neo-romantic poems like
Davnya Kazka
(
The Ancient Tale,
1894) or
Vila-Posestra
(
Sister Vila,
1911) and such dramas as
U Pushchi
(
In the Wilderness,
1910),
Boiarynia
(
The Noblewoman,
1910) and
Lisova Pisnya
(
Song of the Forest,
1910). Popularly, Shevchenko, Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka are known in
Ukrainian culture as the Prophet or Bard, the Stonecutter, and the
Daughter of Prometheus, images based on their respective works.

After the Soviet takeover of Ukraine, many Ukrainian writers chose exile.
This allowed them to write with a freedom that would have been impossible
under the Soviets. Most prominent among them were Yurii Lypa
(1900–1944), Olena Teliha (1907–1942), Evhen Malaniuk
(1897–1968) and Oksana Liaturyns'ka (1902–1970).
Their works are distinguished by an elegant command of form and depth of
expression along with a commitment to their enslaved nation.

Ukrainian literature showed achievements within a wide stylistic spectrum
in the brief period of Ukrainization under the Soviets. Modernism,
avant-garde, and neoclassicism, flourished in opposition to the so-called
proletarian literature. Futurism was represented by Mykhailo Semenko
(1892–1939). Mykola Zerov (1890–1941), Maksym Rylskyj
(1895–1964), and Mykhailo Draj-Khmara (1889–1938) were
neoclassicists. The group VAPLITE (Vil'na Academia
Proletars'koi Literatury [Free Academy of Proletarian Literature],
1925–1928) included the poets Pavlo Tychyna (1891–1967) and
Mike Johansen (1895–1937), the novelists Yurij Yanovs'kyi
(1902–1954) and Valerian Pidmohyl'nyi (1901–1937?),
and the dramatist Mykola Kulish (1892–1937). The VAPLITE leader
Mykola Khvyliovyi (1893–1933) advocated a cultural and political
orientation towards Europe and away from Moscow. VAPLITE championed
national interests within a Communist ideology and therefore came under
political attack and harsh persecution by the pro-Russian Communists.
Khvyliovyi committed suicide after witnessing the 1933 famine. Most
VAPLITE members were arrested and killed in Stalin's prisons.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the so-called social realistic style was
officially mandated in Ukrainian Soviet literature. In 1960 to 1970 a new
generation of writers rebelled against social realism and the official
policy of Russification. Novels by Oles' Honchar
(1918–1995), poetry by Lina Kostenko (1930–) and the
dissident poets Vasyl' Stus (1938–1985) and Ihor
Kalynets' (1938–) opened new horizons. Unfortunately, some
of them paid for this with their freedom and Stus with his life.

Writers of 1980s and the 1990s sought new directions either in a
philosophical rethinking of past and present Ukraine like Valerii Shevchuk
(1939–) or in burlesque and irony like Yurii Andrukhovych
(1960–). Contemporary culture, politics, and social issues are
discussed in the periodicals
Krytyka
and
Suchasnist'
.

Graphic Arts.
Ancient Greek and Roman paintings and Byzantine art modified by local
taste were preserved in colonies in the Northern Black Sea region. The art
of the Kyivan Rus began with icons on wooden panels in Byzantine style.
Soon after the conversion to Christianity, monumental mosaics embellished
churches, exemplified by the Oranta in Kyiv's Saint Sophia
Cathedral. Frescoes on the interior walls and staircases complemented the
mosaics. Frescoes of the period also were created for the Saint Cyril
Church and Saint Michael Monastery in Kyiv.

Medieval manuscript illumination reached a high level of artistry and the
first printed books retained these illuminations. Printing presses were
established in Lviv and Ostrih in 1573, where the

Kiev University. Every large or medium-sized urban center has at
least one university.

Ostrih Bible was published in 1581. In the seventeenth century Kyiv
became a center of engraving. The baroque era secularized Ukrainian
painting, popularizing portraiture even in religious painting: The icon
Mary the Protectress, for example included a likeness of Bohdan
Khmelnytsky. Kozak portraits of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
progressed from a post-Byzantine rigidity to a high baroque
expressiveness.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, several Ukrainian artists
worked in Saint Petersburg: Antin Losenko (1737–1773), Dmytro
Levyts'kyi (1735–1825), Volodymyr Borovykovs'kyi
(1757–1825), and Illia Repin (1844–1928). In 1844 Taras
Shevchenko, a graduate of the Russian Academy of Arts, issued his
lithography album
Picturesque Ukraine
. An ethnographic tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries is represented by Lev Zhemchuzhnikov (1928–1912) and
Opanas Slastion (1855–1933).

Mykola Pymonenko (1862–1912) organized a painting school in Kyiv
favoring a post-romantic style. National elements pervaded paintings of
Serhii Vasylkyvs'kyi (1854–1917). Impressionism
characterized the works of Vasyl (1872–1935) and Fedir
Krychevs'ky (1879–1947). The highly individualistic and
expressive post-romantics Ivan Trush (1869–1941) and Oleksa
Novakivs'kyi (1872–1935) ushered western Ukrainian art into
the twentieth century.

Yurii Narbut's graphics (1886–1920) combined Ukrainian
baroque traditions with principles of modernism. Mykhailo Boichuk
(1882–1939) and his disciples Ivan Padalka (1897–1938) and
Vasyk Sedlyar (1889–1938) combined elements of Byzantine art with
modern monumentalism. Anatol' Petryts'kyi
(1895–1964), an individualistic expressionist, survived Stalinist
persecution to remain a champion of creative freedom to the end of his
life.

In Lviv of the 1930s Ukrainian artists worked in different modernist
styles: Pavlo Kovzhun (1896–1939) was a symbolist and a
constructivist. Several western Ukrainian artists between the two world
wars—Sviatoslav Hordynsky, Volodymyr Lasovsky, Mykhailo Moroz, and
Olena Kulchytska—studied in Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, and Cracow. Many
artists, such as the neo-Byzantinist Petro Kholodnyi, Sr.
(1876–1930) and the expressionist Mykola Butovych
(1895–1962), left Soviet Ukraine for western Ukraine in the 1920s
to avoid persecution. Old icons influenced Vasyl Diadyniuk
(1900–1944) and Yaroslava Muzyka (1896–1973). Alexander
Archipenko (1887–1966), the most prominent Ukrainian artist to
emigrate to the West, attained international stature with paintings and
sculptures that combined abstraction with expressionism.
Akin to Grandma Moses are the folk painters Maria Pryimachenko
(1908–) and Nykyfor Drevniak (1900–1968).

After World War II many Ukrainian artists immigrated into the United
States and other Western countries. Jacques Hnizdovsky (1915–1985)
achieved wide recognition in engraving and woodcuts. The highly stylized
sculpture of Mykhailo Chereshniovsky showed a unique lyrical beauty.
Edvard Kozak (1902–1998), a caricaturist in pre-World War II Lviv,
became a cultural icon in the diaspora.

After Stalin's genocide of the 1930s, social realism (a didactic
kind of cliched naturalism applied to all literary and artistic media)
became the only style allowed in the Soviet Union. In the 1960s some young
Ukrainian artists and poets, who also defended civil rights, rejected
social realism. For some of them this proved tragic: the muralist Alla
Hors'ka was assassinated, and the painter Opanas Zalyvakha was
imprisoned in the Gulag for long years. During the 1980s, modernism and
postmodernism appeared in Ukraine in spontaneous art movements and
exhibitions. Post-modern rethinking infused the works of Valerii Skrypka
and Bohdan Soroka. An identity search in the Ukrainian diaspora showed in
the surrealistic works of Natalka Husar.

Performance Arts.
Ukrainian folk music is highly idiosyncratic despite sharing significant
formal elements with the music of neighboring cultures. Epic
dumas
—ancient melodies, especially those of seasonal rituals—are
tonally related to medieval modes, Greek tetrachords, and Turkic
embellishments. The major/minor tonal system appeared in the baroque
period. Typical genres in Ukrainian folk music are solo singing; part
singing groups; epic
dumas
sung by (frequently blind) bards who accompanied themselves on the
bandura (a lute shaped psaltery); and dance music by
troisty muzyky,
an ensemble of fiddle, wind, and percussion including a hammered
dulcimer. Traditional dances—
kozachok, hopak, metelytsia, kolomyika, hutsulka,
and
arkan
—differ by rhythmic figures, choreography, region, and sometimes by
gender, but share a duple meter. Traditional folk instruments include the
bandura, a variety of flutes, various fiddles and basses, drums and
rattles, the bagpipe, the hurdy-gurdy, the Jew's harp, and the
hammered dulcimer.

The medieval beginnings of professional music are both secular and sacred.
The former was created by court bards and by
skomorokhy
(jongleurs). The latter was created by Greek and Bulgarian church
musicians. Ukrainian medieval and Renaissance sacred a capella music was
codified and notated in several Irmologions. The baroque composer and
theoretician Mykola Dylets'kyi developed a polyphonic style that
composers Maksym Berezovs'kyi (1745–1777), Dmytro
Bortnians'kyi (1751–1825), and Artem Vedel
(1767–1808) combined with eighteenth-century classicism. The first
Ukrainian opera
Zaporozhets za Dunayem
(Zaporozhian beyond the Danube) was composed in 1863 by Semen
Hulak-Artemovs'kyi (1813–1873). The Peremyshl School of
western Ukraine was represented by Mykhailo Verbyts'kyi
(1815–1870), Ivan Lavrivs'kyi (1822–1873), and Victor
Matiuk (1852–1912). All three composed sacred music, choral and
solo vocal works, and music for the theater.

A scion of ancient kozak aristocracy, Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912) is
known as the Father of Ukrainian Music. A graduate of the Leipzig
Conservatory, a pianist, and a musical ethnographer, Lysenko created a
national school of composition that seamlessly integrated elements of
Ukrainian folk music into a mainstream Western style. His works include a
cyclic setting of Shevchenko's poetry; operas, including
Taras Bulba;
art songs and choral works; cantatas; piano pieces; and chamber music.
His immediate disciples were Kyrylo Stetsenko (1883–1922) and
Mykola Leontovych (1877–1919). Twentieth-century Ukrainian music is
represented by the post-Romantics Borys Liatoshyns'kyi
(1895–1968), Lev Revuts'kyi (1899–1977), Vasyl
Barvins'kyi (1888–1963), Stanyslav Liudkevych
(1879–1980), and Mykola Kolessa (1904–). Contemporary
composers include Myroslav Skoryk, Lesia Dychko, and Volodymyr Huba.

The theater in Ukraine began with the folk show
vertep
and baroque intermedia performed at academies. The baroque style with its
florid language and stock allegories lasted longer in Ukraine than in
Western Europe. The eighteenth-century classicism featured sentimentalist
plays presented by public, private, and serf theaters.
Kotliarevs'ky's ballad opera
Natalka-Poltavka
(
Natalka from Poltava
) and the comedy
Moskal'-Charivnyk
(
The Sorcerer Soldier
) premiered in 1819 and began an ethnographically oriented Ukrainian
theater. In
1864 the
Rus'ka Besida
(Ruthenian Club) in Lviv under Austria established a permanent Ukrainian
theater, while in the Russian Empire Ukrainian plays were staged by
amateurs until banned by the
Ems Ukase
. Despite this prohibition, Marko Kropyvnyts'kyi (1840–1910)
staged Ukrainian plays in 1881 along with Mykhailo Staryts'kyi
(1840–1904) and the Tobilevych brothers. The latter became known
under their pen and stage names as the playwright Ivan Karpenko-Karyi
(1845–1907) and the actors and directors Panas Saksahans'kyi
(1859–1940) and Mykola Sadovs'kyi (1856–1933). They
created an entire repertoire of historical and social plays.
Sadovs'kyi's productions marked the beginning of Ukrainian
cinema: Sakhnenko's studio in Katerynoslav filmed his theater
productions in 1910.

From 1917 to 1922 numerous new theaters appeared in both Eastern and
western Ukraine. The most prominent new figure in theater was Les'
Kurbas, director of The Young Theatre in Kyiv and later of Berezil theater
in Kharkiv. His innovative approach combined expressionism with traditions
of ancient Greek and Ukrainian folk theaters and included an acting method
based on theatrical synthesis, a psychologically reinterpreted gesture,
and a rhythmically unified performance. The expressionist style was
adopted in the cinema by the internationally recognized director Oleksandr
Dovzhenko (1894–1956).

Berezil's leading dramatist Mykola Kulish (1892–1937)
reflected in his plays the social and national conflicts in Soviet Ukraine
and the appearance of a class that used revolution for personal purposes.
In 1933–1934 Kurbas, Kulish, and many of their actors were arrested
and later killed in Stalin's prisons. As in every other art, social
realism became the only drama style, exemplified by the plays of the party
hack Oleksander Korniichuk. In 1956 former members of The Young Theatre
and Berezil formed The Ivan Franko Theatre in Kyiv, but without the
innovative character of the former ensembles.

Some Berezil members who escaped from the Soviet Union during World War II
brought Kurbas's style to western Ukraine. After World War II these
and other Ukrainian actors found themselves in refugee camps in Western
Europe and made theater an influential force for preservation of national
culture and reconstitution of the refugees' identity after cultural
shocks of war and displacement. Theaters led by Volodymyr
Blavats'kyi (1900–1953) and former Berezil actor Josyp
Hirniak continued their performances as professional companies in New York
in the 1950s and 1960s.

New ideas appeared in Ukrainian cinema of the 1960s. Director Kira
Muratova's work showed existentialist concepts. The impressionistic
and ethnographically authentic
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
(1964) by Sergij Paradzhanov and Jurii Ilienko was a prize-winner at
Cannes. Ilienko is now a leading Ukrainian film director and
cinematographer of post-modern style.

The State of the Physical and Social Sciences

The present National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine succeeds its Soviet
eponym. It is an umbrella for research institutes, specializing in all
fields of sciences and humanities. Most institutes are funded by the
state, and unfortunately their budgets were cut by 38 percent in the year
2000. The scientific institutes usually sign independent contracts to
provide research for industry. At present they have developed their own
small enterprises in order to finance otherwise unfunded projects.
Institutes in humanities and social sciences survive through publication
grants from independent foundations. The National Academy of Medical
Sciences and the National Academy of Pedagogy are similar to the Academy
of Sciences and are financed by the state. Other research institutes are
sponsored by diverse industries combining general research with
product-oriented work. University-based research groups obtain funds from
the Ministry of Education on the basis of open competition. The Ministry
of Science has a yearly competition for project awards for research
institutes. The competition concept is indicative of the transition from a
centralized budget to funding through merit grants.

I am Mexican, White Russian and Ukranian. I am having a baptism for my son. I wanted to find out some traditions for a baptism. Such as, Mexicans after the baptism the godparents throw coins for the children who attended-to prove they are not cheap Ha Ha. I was trying to find out traditions for ukranians. I enjoyed the website it was very informative. So far, a haircut on the first birthday and safety pins inside the clothes are some traditions do I put the safety pins inside the baptism outfit? is there anything else?

I am writing a book about the Gulag. Fiction. One of my characters come from the Ukraine. I found this very helpful to create a cultural background for my Character.
I have come from this article with a sense of what a fascinating culture and history that these people have.

AS a Ukrainian from Ukraine i have to commend the author on well done research and detailed presentation of our long and complex history. Most notably, the relationships with other nations and cultures have been presented in a balanced way and that is truly impressive. This artice helped me crystalize my muddled and sometimes vague memories from history and culture classes - thank you.
Well done!

Duzhe dobre! This article helps me alot to understand Ukraine better because of its structure and the impartial writing style. Unfortunately, Ukraine was hidden behind the Iron curtain during my school times. I enjoy my travels to Ukraine every time. Recommendable!

Very informative. I am marrying a Ukrainian woman this summer and it was important to understand much about cultural traditions as well as more modern viewpoints and information. I enjoyed reading this very much. I feel very comfortable in Ukraine and Crimea.

Thank you for your reaserch. My grandmother was born in a colony called Antonien, Dec. 25.1870. Her birth was recorded in Luth Church in Roschischtsche. She borne 12 children, the youngest is my mother. My grandfather came to the Ukraine as a 10 year old orphan after his father died during a militia scudddle in Austria. He served in the guard at King Ferdidand's court. He was born in Konig Graz/Austria. The Colony was German/Austrian/Polish settlers. I am assuming that with the final collapse of the feudal system in Europe (ca 1853)many peasants went to the Ukraine whith promises from PeterI of land and work and good fortune. Can you suggest any lierature available on the subject of migration to the Ukraine and subsequent expulsion of these people after WW1. Thank you very much for your consideration.

I am trying to get any kind of info on a village in the Ukraine that was called Iosypivka. It was also called Ludvinka before WW1, Yuzefpol between the wars, and Iosipovka after WWII. My family was from there and I am trying to find out if the place still exsists or has any records. My family left around 1904. I need to know which district it's in and any contact addresses for the town. Thanks

Well done, some parts are missing, but well done... Myself, I'm Ukrainian, already over 7 years abroad...Reading of this, was some way, like travel back to motherland for awhile. Thanks... I'm impressed...

Has anyone from the Ukraine/Carpathian Mountain region ever heard of a dish called something like, ketza litza? It's a dish that cooks lima beans in a flour/yeast gravy base, lightly seasoned. Anyone have any idea what I mean? Grandma made it every Christmas Eve. Thanks!

My international friends and I love to compare similarities and differences. I can survey 100 people in a given city and still get conflicting answers. People are unique by interests, talents, experience, and financial situation. If I put them all in the same place for a year, I would still get different answers. At least a survey may provide a better picture.

None of my Ukrainian friends agreed with the article. You cannot believe everything you read.

My Ukrainian Grandmother was born just barely in Austria 1897. She immigrated to the U.S. when she was 8 years old. She taught me how to make pysanky using a drop and pull method. Evidently, this method is common in western Ukraine in the Carpathian Mountain region. I have my Grandmothers birth certificate and it gives the city of her birth in Austria, but I can't find it on the map.

Eileen Grant, I am Ukrainian and I agree to most of the info in the article... There is almost nothing to deny in it just because it is so short. Though it's filled with standard cliche data. In fact Ukraine is much more diverse then they state it in the article. The customs as well as dialects vary from village to village. But in general the article is more or less impartial. BTW you forgot to mention what exactly is wrong on your friends opinion. And are your friends really ukrainians? Not russian living in Ukraine, not jews, greeks etc? Are they western Ukrainians or eastern? The views on the traditions and history differ in Ukraine quite a lot...

aloha tommy aiken,
I am afraid there is no common funeral tradition over Ukraine and the ortodox church itself does not regulate much of the funeral customs. In some villages people may wear traditional Ukrainian clothes, in some just plain normal non-bright clothes. For the majority of urban population (orthodox and catholic) black\dark business suite would be the most preferable.

Ukrainians are great people. They have suffered alot throughout their history not because of their own wrong-doing but because someone else was making a decision on their behalf. They have defended Russia at numerous occasions. Ukrainians are among the sweetest people on earth. By nature, they are peaceful people who love to enjoy life but when put to the test they can do wonders. Got some friends from Ukraine and I love them so dearly. Viva Ukraine.

This information is very useful., I know and understand the lives and cultures. The Ukrainian, in the sense of I, I am sympathetic to Ukrainian women, quite a lot of social pressure. In many countries, it is similar to a Ukrainian. Or that it is the culture of each country. But I cheer them up with women all Ukraine., you must had a better future. Of course

Hi there , I've really found it very interesting because I've planned a visit to the Ukraine and I just thought that I should just find out about the in's and out's of Ukraine . To be very honest it's a great help because I'm going to visit my Lady there .

I think it should involve more thought about Kiev Day and the foods they eat then. It is the most important holiday of Ukraine and people should know more about it. Other than that this page has very good info.

I was recently in Ulraine and I loved it, mainly observing people in their daily lifes.
I believe as in any country our personal perceptions are based on our own experiences and background.
I agree that this info in probably a general view of a multifacetic and Rich culture, it is just a guideline, it is up to each to discover this beautiful country through our own personal eyes.

nice information, it's very important for me to understand much about Ukraine Culture. Because my husband is Ukrainian, and I am Indonesian. we had an Intercultural marriage and we have a different culture, religion, etc. but we can through well. thank you very much.